KARACHI, Sept 28: Software with the capability of automatically translating English Web pages into Urdu is being developed. The first phase of the project is complete, and a demonstration of the software has been presented. Tasfeer Ahmed, a Pakistani software engineer, has developed an automated English-to-Urdu translator, which is available to users on the Internet. It can translate simple as well as complex English sentences into Urdu language and display them in the form of a Web page. The software can also be customized to translate scientific, economic, legal, medical and engineering terms. "From various aspects, it's very hard to write an English-to-Urdu translation software," said Tafseer Ahmed. "The two languages are so different in their grammar and composition. To make it more complex, things and actions (verbs) have no gender in English." The software demo, called "Urdu Mashini Mutarajjim," has a vocabulary of 500 words, which will be enhanced to a full-fledged program. The program will require at least 100,000 man-hours for completion, says the developer. The algorithm of the software has been developed with the help of Sadaf Alvi, a student of Computer Science at Karachi University. The translation software demo was held at Dr Salimuzzaman Siddiqui Science Center. Ahmed Mirza Jameel, who is one of the developers of "Noori Nast'aliq", the first computerized Urdu calligraphy for publishing, presided the event. Dr Qazi Abdul Qadir, Sadaf Alvi and Aleem Ahmed read papers on history and significance of translation, automated translation, and need for Nast'aliq Open Type Font (OTF) for the development of Urdu in the information age. [Dawn] |
